Walter A. McDougall Quotes
General Macarthur did not bring democracy to the Japanese. If anyone, it was Curtis Lemay.
Lemay was the Air Force general who led the firebombing and other attacks on Japanese cites with far more casualties than were produced by the atomic bombs which his planes also delivered.
Walter A. McDougall, Historian, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Institute, Response to Question, Foreign Policy Institute, May 13, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
She was referring to the aftermath of the Iraq War.
She was referring to the aftermath of the Iraq War.
Even in modern America, we overreact to foreign attacks or acts of terrorism as do most democracies and intestine party conflict is common.
Buleihi is one of the few Arab intellectuals who are not totally negative about Western colonialism and interference in the affairs of other countries who he believes benefit from the Western influence and have developed such an insularity that they will not be changed or modernized otherwise.
65 years later, this would become a major principle of conservatives, but it was a liberal President who seemed first to make this statement in a major address.
The final decision regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor and war with America had to be made. The Emperor Hirohito, Prime Minister Tojo, the full cabinet and leading elder statesmen were invited. Hara attended as one of the latter class. America had instituted an embargo of critical raw material whose end was contingent of Japan withdrawing from the territory that they had invaded and stop their territorial aggression in Asia, an aggression which some Japanese leaders—notably the military—was absolutely necessary to provide for the growing Japanese population and its increasing standard of living. At the time, an embargo was a powerfully effective weapon, which left Japan only two choices: Withdrawal or War. In modern times nations have chosen to endure and evade embargoes rather than be forced into undesirable positions.
In the Potsdam Declaration the Allies gave their demands for Japanese unconditional surrender. This was the Japanese reaction. The plans to drop the atomic bombs were then approved.
The United States had then only existed for about 30 years but was already a model.
The Germans killed 22 million Russians, most deliberate murders and not collateral damage, in WWII.
Kishi was an ultra conservative who was one of the politicians who signed the Declaration of War against the U. S. and then served in the Japanese War Cabinet and was the Minister of Commerce and Industry. In the latter post he presided over and made policies about the utilization of slave labor and brutal and illegal treatment of prisoners of war. After Japan’s surrender he was jailed as a “Class A” war crimes suspect along with several other cabinet ministers. In 1948, General MacArthur decided not to prosecute the Cabinet Ministers as he had decided not to prosecute the Emperor Hirohito. His brother was the secretary to the prime minister’s cabinet who had arranged a job for him. However, all the people in government were now building a democratic government. Being a right wing pro military, pro empire politician was no longer feasible and he discovered all his ex-colleagues who hated democracy before were now extolling its virtues. He went with the flow, and reorganized his political constituency, and gained control of the Diet, but now they were all democrats. Then he became prime minister. He was an ardent anti-communist and the Cold War was raging so his previous right wing dictatorial, pro war positions and his war crimes were overlooked by MacArthur and the allies.
Walter Allen McDougall is an American historian, currently a professor of history and the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania.
